Twilight Blaze
by SoRikuRox
Summary: It's hard enough to have a best friend that keeps outshining you, let alone if you're also desperately in love with him. But what happens when you finally meet someone that finds you more appealing than your friend? [SoraXRiku] [RikuXRoxas] [RoxasXSora]
1. Chapter 1: Nothing Like Before

******Disclaimer:** My name is Tetsuya Nomura, but you can simply call me Mr. Final Fantasy. In consequence of this, I do own Kingdom Hearts and everything that happens in this story is canon in the game universe. And it doesn't matter that this story is AU. Because I say so.

**Warnings: **Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (not necessarily in this order), boy/boy pairings, attempts at humor, not at all educative behaviors, yaoi triangles, friendship/idiotic friends, hormon-drived guys, namby-pamby stuff, all-stars, badass Roxas and a lot of other stuff that I should and will not mention here.

**Main Pairings:** Sora/Riku, Riku/Roxas, Roxas/Sora

**Author's notes:** Alright, my second story has finally arrived (well, the first chapter, anyway). I'm totally experimenting here, so I'll decide where to bring the story depending on the reception. Searching for a beta-reader for this story.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Nothing like before**

_Saturday_

Twilight Town, a random Saturday of a random summer. A skinny brunet, wearing his usual white shirt two sizes bigger than his and a pair of old red pants kept up only thanks to an equally old brown belt, was walking wearing his deep purple all-stars through the reddish roads of the city, a couple of steps behind his friend.

"Sora!"

The voice made the brunet shiver, partly for pleasure, partly for fear that his friend could realize that he was staring at him once again.

"Uh... what's going on, Riku?"

Riku. The perfect boy Sora was so desperately in love since... well, since ever: they had been friends since childhood and Sora couldn't remember when he had started to feel more than friendship towards the upperclassman. He loved all about him: his silvery hair, his muscular body, his deep aquamarine eyes, … just everything. That day he was wearing a light-blue shirt, opened just enough to embarrass Sora, and a pair of torn jeans that let see some parts of his legs. Definitively too much for Sora to walk next to him.

"Are you listening? Why are you walking so far from me?"

"Oh, uh..." Sora searched for something intelligent to say, but as usual when Riku was around, his nerves were failing him.

Riku sighed turning his head slowly towards the small brunet. Man, sometimes Sora wondered if Riku was able to guess his thoughts. "Let's just drink something, alright?"

* * *

The silver-haired boy was looking at his drink without really seeing it, relaxing in his chair at Cid's, one of the most frequented bar in the main plaza of Twilight Town. A skinny brunet was looking at him in admiration, without losing a single word of what he was saying. Riku liked that, but there was something in Sora's gaze that he just couldn't understand.

"...so I told her 'I'm sorry, we can't keep going out together, I'm gay, it wouldn't be honest to you.'... or something like that, and she immediately stopped calling me." Riku was totally at ease: after all it wasn't the first time that he had used that excuse to get rid of a girl. Sora was still staring at him, but Riku wasn't sure that he was really listening anymore.

"But then she took out a bazooka and shot at me, I was fast enough to dodge, but she transformed into a giant bug and she ate me. And that's how I died."

No reaction; of course, Sora was again in his dream world. At least until Riku looked at him directly and he immediately came back to the real world. "Oh, yes, of course, Riku." Sora said, vainly trying to sound convincing. Riku sighed again.

"Whatever. Anyway, this is a little advantage of being bisexual, when you get tired to hang around with someone, you can just tell that you're interested in the other sex. And it really works. Well, as long as you frequent people outside of the school, if people would discover it there... I would end up like you." Riku said, proudly drinking the last of his tropical cocktail. At that moment he noticed that Sora had not yet touched the ice cream he had ordered; knowing him as much as he did, that was a really bad sign. Then again, thinking about it, the brunet always seemed down during the last weeks. _'Oh, well, he will go better sooner or later.'_ Riku thought.

"Cid, another one!" the silver-haired boy cried to the barman. "Sora, eat that ice-cream, we can't stay here all day." When he was sure that Sora was obeying, he started to look around him, in search of something interesting: Twilight Town was a huge city after all, with lots of people coming and going, and Riku loved meeting new people. Guys or girls. He stopped abruptly the flow of his thoughts the moment his eyes caught sight of spiky blond hair somewhere behind Sora. He moved a little to the left to see who the owner was and he saw a beautiful boy, sitting alone a few tables from theirs.

"Hey, Sora!" The little brunet lifted immediately his eyes to meet Riku's. "Do you know who that guy is?" he asked pointing discretely his finger in the direction of the unknown.

Sora turned his head so abruptly that the mysterious boy caught immediately sight of him. Their eyes meet for a moment before Sora turned immediately his head away, looking at Riku once more and blushing furiously.

"Really discreet, Sora." Riku laughed at him. "So, ever seen him, before?"

"No." Sora answered trying to bury his face in his ice-cream. "Must be someone new around here, he's sitting alone."

"Come on!" Riku exclaimed standing up and forcing Sora to let go of his ice cream. "We go meet him."

"What! No way!" Sora protested, refusing to stand up. And that was a problem, because Riku wanted a stooge.

"As you wish." Riku answered faking indifference. "I'll just have to tell him that my friend wants to know him and I'll bring him here to this table."

"You... you won't do it... right?"

But Riku was already halfway through the place, so Sora simply swallowed the rest of ice cream in a single bite and ran after him.

* * *

_'This town looks promising.'_

The blond boy looked at his watch. 17:00. He wondered if there was something to do around there at 17 o' clock. It was just two days since he had moved with his parents from Traverse Town, but he had already got the impression that Twilight Town was a really interesting place, with lots of interesting people to meet. He was just thinking to that when he caught sight of a skinny brunet a couple of tables away that was looking at him. He smiled a little, but the other boy was already looking away. _'Looks like I've already found someone interesting here.'_ He arranged his black, high-collared jacket and turned up a little the gray hem on the end of each sleeve, preparing himself to go talk with that interesting boy. He didn't have the time to do it, though, 'cause a second later he saw a silver-haired boy getting closer to his table.

"Hi, there. I've never seen you before, can I sit here?"

He looked at him: he wasn't bad at all, actually he was pretty hot, but he didn't want to lose time with him: the other boy could go away any moment. "It's not a federal crime, I guess." quickly answered to the tall boy, looking to see if the brunet was still somewhere in sight.

It was quite a surprise when he saw it coming towards his table with an evident embarrassed expression painted on his face. The tall boy, on the other side, looked quite surprised at the cold welcome received from the blond guy. Still, he sat at his table trying to start a conversation, only to be quickly interrupted by a certain brunet that had now reached them despite having tripped in a chair along the way.

"H-hi." the boy said timidly standing in front of them and without saying another single word.

"So, you're new around here? I'm Riku, what's your name?" the tall boy asked ignoring the embarrassed boy that was still paralyzed next to them.

_'Who the hell does he think he is to treat that guy this way?' _The blond boy was sure to have already figured out that Riku guy: one of those good-looking people that think they can have whatever (or, in this case, whoever) they want. Well, not this time."Have a seat, boy." he said totally ignoring the silver-haired boy the same way he had done a moment ago with the brunet. "Company isn't that good, but cocktails are great." To Riku, that sentence must have felt like a slap in the face; the blond guy was sure of that.

"I... I... sure, thanks." the brunet muttered taking a place at the table while the barman was serving a tropical cocktail to his friend. The unknown was amused at that boy's embarrassed antics.

"You're always so eloquent, kid?" he asked, more and more intrigued by him.

"Who, Sora?" Riku answered in his stead. "Not at all, sometimes he's a bit... uncommunicative."

The blond boy turned his head slowly towards him, now clearly irritated. "Let me guess: you're trying your show of ventriloquism. Let me give you an advice: it works better if you just pretend to shut up."

"You're starting to get on my nerves." the silver-haired boy finally react. "Do you want to see the show of the guy sawn in half?"

"Uh... guys?" Sora interrupted the two of them, immediately getting their attention. "Why don't we just... calm down for a second? We didn't mean to disturb you, we just wanted to... uh, meet you."

_'I really like this guy's attitude.' _"Alright, then." the blond guy started, relaxing in his chair and sipping the last of his drink. "I suppose we all started off on the wrong foot. So you're Sora and... Rikky, right?"

"Riku." the tall boy corrected him while regaining his calm demeanor. "And I suppose you have a name too."

"Yes, I have." he answered. "So, what's interesting to do around here, Sora?"

Sora, clearly not used to catching someone's attention when Riku was around, looked at his friend as of asking permission to talk. The blond boy didn't like that.

"There will be a big party at one of our friend's house in a few days." Riku said without waiting for Sora to answer. "You could come with us, I could put in a good word for you." He was smirking, sipping slowly his cocktail and waiting for a reaction. And the blond boy wanted to react, but then he thought that that offer was actually interesting. And judging from the influence the silver-haired boy had on the brunet, he thought that being nice with him was the better option, after all.

"Riku, I'm not sure Cloud will be happy with us inviting someone at his house." Sora murmured to his friend.

"You let me take care of Spiky McGrumble, he won't say 'no' to me." Riku said in a tone that irritated the blond boy even more. "Otherwise, we're going to spend the evening at the beach with our friends this evening, you could come with us, so we'd get the occasion to know you a little better, what do you think?"

"I'd better not say what I'm thinking right now. But I'd like to come with you and visit the beach. You'll be there too, Sora?" the blond boy was now fixing the brunet so intensely that he made him blush violently. Sora simply nodded slowly. "Then it's settled. When and where?"

"We'll meet at 10 o' clock at the station. Do you have a bike? If you don't I can bring you there with mine and..."

"I'd prefer to go there hand-standing. Thanks for the offer but I'm fine."

Sora and Riku stood up and started to go away, then the brunet turned back and asked one more question. "What's your name?"

* * *

"...arrogant, insufferable, loudmouth. I was just trying to be nice with him, did you see how he treated me?"

Sora, walking next to his friend, was smiling. He was quite sad until that encounter, but now he was feeling completely happy. He didn't care that much about that blond boy's kindness towards him; sure, it was a nice change from being ignored in stead of his better-looking/more-interesting silver-haired friend, but what was really making Sora smile was that that guy had clearly shown that he had no interest in Riku, which meant that he wouldn't have seen the two of them together. He was trying not to show that much his happiness, but Riku knew him well-enough to understand him.

"What's so funny, Sora?" the upperclassman asked glaring at him. Sora dropped immediately the half-smile on his face.

"I... nothing, seriously." he said in a not convincing at all way.

"You're thinking that you may have a possibility with him, isn't it?" That sentence shocked Sora the most: he hadn't even thought for a moment that such a hot guy could have been interested in him. He had simply thought that he wasn't interested in Riku and had just wanted to talk to anyone else around there. He didn't even know if that blond guy liked guys, after all.

"I... I'm not, of course." Sora felt a little of the sadness of the morning coming back to him. "Hey, you know what? Let's not see him again, we'll just go out this evening and then we'll part ways with him, what do you think?" he said in a pleading voice.

"No!"

Sora looked at his friend, surprised and confused. "Why not? He doesn't like you, you don't like him..."

"Who said that I don't like him?" Riku interrupted his friend, serious.

"But you said..."

"I know what I've said, thanks. That's what makes him interesting."

Sora was completely at a loss. "I... I don't understand."

"Who knows to have already won doesn't fight. Only who has to turn the tables struggles until the end."

Sora's mood fell down once more the moment he realized that his friend wouldn't have let the blond boy go: when Riku wanted something he always got it. In this case, that thing was Roxas.

* * *

**End Notes:** As written before, I'm waiting to see the reception of this story before continuing it. Opened to suggestions and criticisms, just remember that the best way to make a writer happy is to leave him a review :)


	2. Chapter 2: Brand New World

**Disclaimer: **My name is Tetsuya Nomura, but you can simply call me Mr. Final Fantasy. In consequence of this, I do own Kingdom Hearts, so everything that happens in this story is canon in the game universe. And it doesn't matter that this story is AU. Because I say so.

**Warnings: **Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (not necessarily in this order), boy/boy pairings, attempts at humor, not at all educative behaviors, yaoi triangles, friendship/idiotic friends, hormon-drived guys, namby-pamby stuff, all-stars, badass Roxas and a lot of other stuff that I should and will not mention here.

**Main Pairings:** Sora/Riku, Riku/Roxas, Roxas/Sora

**Author's notes:** Here we go, beach chapter! Yeah, bEAch, I wrote it right. There should be a beach chapter in every story...

* * *

**Chapter 2: Brand New World**

_Saturday_

Roxas was sat on one of the benches of the train station, playing with his black-and-white checkerboard pattern wristband; he always did that when he was bored.

_'10 minutes past 10. Not really punctual these guys.' _For a second a thought crossed his mind: what if it was all a big joke? Maybe they would have never arrived or, worse, they would have come just to prank him, it wouldn't have been the first time that someone tried, after all. Well, they just had to try. He shook violently his head as to pushing away those thoughts: _'Don't be paranoiac, Roxas. You aren't in Traverse Town anymore, it's a whole new life, now!'_

"Hey, Roxas!"

Sora's voice made him startle slightly. He turned his head to see the brunet and his friend Riku walking towards him. "Sorry, we're late?"  
"Don't worry, kiddo. It's the rest of the world that is early." Roxas answered peacefully.

"Hey, where's your bike?" Riku asked in a nearly hopeful voice.

_'Like I would ride with you...'_ "I don't need one." The blond boy took out a black and white skateboard from under the bench; he was really bad shaped, witness of countless accidents.

"Think you can keep up with me, guys?"

* * *

_'Well, who would have guessed it? He's really keeping up with me.' _

Riku, who was sure to quickly put some distance between him and Roxas, was decisively surprised when he saw that the blond boy was following him close without apparent effort. Sora, on the other side, was far behind as usual; for a moment the silver-haired boy thought to speed up a little, just enough to stay alone with the blondie. For a moment.

* * *

"Hey Riku, we're here!"

The voice was coming from a girl with auburn hair and crystal blue eyes. She was sitting around a fire camp with three more people, presumably Sora and Riku's friends. Riku came closer to Roxas to avoid being heard. "What do you think about her? Her name is Kairi, pretty hot girl, uh?" he asked without waiting for an answer, keeping to walk towards the fire camp.

That question left Roxas surprised. He had thought that that Riku guy had some interest in him but, after that consideration, he started to think that maybe he was wrong, that maybe Riku wasn't...

"Heeey, wait for me!" Sora's voice made Roxas turn his head and put aside those thoughts. At least for the moment. Riku turned his head slowly in the direction of the brunet that was running towards them too, but kept walking.

"You're pretty slow with the bike, kiddo." Roxas said in a tone that wasn't derisive, merely stating a fact.

"Eh? Oh, yeah, I guess." Sora answered just before tripping on a log and falling on the ground. Roxas smiled at that goofy guy and helped him get up; he was wearing bright blue all-stars, that evening.

"Come on, let's reach the fire camp. Your friend Riku isn't waiting for us." Roxas said loud enough to be heard by the silver-haired boy and paying particular attention at stressing the 'your' part of the sentence.

"Alright, alright. Take a seat, you two." Riku indicated the log next to him, then he started to introduce the newcomer to their friends. "The beautiful girl here next to me is Kairi. Then Selphie, Tidus, Wakka and Sora... Oh, sorry." he looked at his friend grinning "Sora is so insignificant that I keep forgetting that you already know him." he concluded chuckling. Sora didn't look offended: Roxas figured that he had to be used to that kind of humor.

"Don't worry." the blond boy answered without losing his cool and sitting next to Sora. "I can imagine that having more than two thoughts on your mind must be difficult for you." Selphie, Tidus and Wakka laughed, Sora and Kairi didn't, though. And Riku neither looked amused.

"Ah-ah-ah, really funny, I've dislocated my jaw laughing."

"Don't worry, with a punch it should go back in place."

Sora let out a suffocated laugh.

* * *

Despite the little skirmishes between him and Riku, Roxas quickly found himself enjoying the evening. He had never been much of a talkative guy, more of a listener, and he quickly discovered that, between Sora and Tidus, there wasn't a lot of time to talk, anyway. Wakka, on the other side, with his orange (yes, not red, orange) hair and enormous coif, looked like a quiet guy, balancing the hyperactive duo, while Kairi and Selphie didn't give him that much of an impression: they just looked like the classical gossiping girls that he just couldn't stand after what had happened in Traverse Town. What he found the most irritating, though, was Riku, of course; it wasn't just the jokes that he kept doing for all the evening at Sora's expenses, not even what, Roxas was pretty sure, were advances on him: it was more like if it was just the very presence of Riku that irritated him. But Sora just stood there, always with a smile painted on his face.

"So, where did you live before moving here, Roxas?" Tidus suddenly asked offering him a beer.

"Traverse Town." Roxas answered, quickly opening the can and starting to drink, hoping that with his mouth full he could've avoided some other questions on his past.

"Oooh, the city of the shopping." Kairi and Selphie squeaked together.

"Yo, 'city of the shopping'? What are ya talking 'bout?" Wakka asked, drunk judging from the way he was talking. Then Roxas realized that that bizarre guy had drunk just water for all the evening.

"Traverse Town. It's a small city pretty well known for his numerous shops and considerably low prices."

Sure, figure if Mister-Know-It-All aka Riku wouldn't have felt the need to show his incredible knowledge. "His name is said to be due to the lots of people that every day come visiting it." the silver-haired boy concluded looking at Roxas like as waiting some prize for knowing the city where he came from.

"Sounds like a fun place." Sora commented innocently. "Why did you move from there?" There. He knew that sooner or later someone would have asked him that.

"My dad -psychologist if you want to know- received an offer for working here." the blond boy answered trying to control himself, but avoiding Sora's gaze. "So we just caught the occasion and moved to Twilight Town."

None else asked anything else for the rest of the evening about the reasons of Roxas' relocation in Twilight Town and, of that, he was really thankful.

* * *

When the fire started to fade out, with the midnight wind remembering them that the summer was ending, the group of young people decided that it was best to go home. Sora and Tidus started to collect all the beer cans that they had scattered all around the place. The blond guy slowly moved next to his friend talking with a conspiratory voice.

"So, how did you meet this Roxas guy?" Tidus asked to Sora, moving a little his head in the direction of the subject of their conversation, who was talking with Wakka just a few meters from them.

"Oh." Sora exclaimed surprised by that question. "Rik... It just happened." the brunet answered slightly embarrassed.

"Yeah, well, but how?" Tidus asked again, clearly not satisfied by that vague answer.

"We... we just went to drink something with him, that's all."

"Sora!" Tidus said fixing his friend and forcing him to look back at him. It could have even looked serious (which, for Tidus, was already pretty difficult to believe) if he wasn't carrying a pack of empty beer-cans in his hands. "Seriously, that's what I'm thinking is?"

Sora blushed so deeply that Tidus didn't even wait for an answer. "I knew it!" he exclaimed so loud that Roxas (accompanied by everyone else) turned his head towards them making Sora's blush deepen even more. Then Tidus came back to his conspiratory tone of voice making sure that they couldn't be heard. "You're in love with him, right?"

"What? No!" Sora exclaimed even louder than Tidus before, with everyone still looking at them.

"It's alright, guys? What's happening?" Selphie asked curiously walking towards them with Kairi immediately behind her.

"Sora has found a boyfriend!" Tidus screamed like a fangirl.

Silence. A silence so thick that it could have been cut with a knife. At that precise moment, Sora would have preferred to use one against Tidus, though.

"Come on, what's the big deal, the newcomer will hear it at school anyway, so it was just a matter of time." Tidus tried to say in a not at all convincing way, earning immediately a glare from both the girls that made him turn his head towards Roxas. "I-I mean... you... it's not a problem for you that Sora is..."

"Tidus shut up!" Riku cut him, surprisingly. The blond boy ceased immediately to talk. Sora was more focused on Roxas, though, searching for some reaction from him. Vainly; he was just staring at him with nothing more than plain curiosity painted on his face.

* * *

_'So he really swings that way.' _Roxas was thinking while experimenting an intense wave of happiness that was paying a lot of attention not to show to the object of his interest, which was looking at him with a shade of panic in his big blue eyes.

"You like guys?" he simply asked to the brunet, with all the innocence that someone could put in such a question.

"I... uhm... y-yeah, I do." Sora timidly answered without directly looking at him. "But... but I don't have a boyfriend!" he added in an apologizing way immediately after.

"I think that's enough, let's just finish to pack our things and let's go." Riku intervened, perfectly calm, yet stentorian. And everyone else obeyed.

At the breath of relief that Sora let out while everyone else was listening to Riku's dispositions, Roxas couldn't help but having a thought cross his mind.

_'Was he really defending Sora?'_

He looked at the silver-haired guy in glacial way, at which Riku quickly added, as if he was reading his mind: "I want to go sleep as soon as possible."

And so ended Roxas' first evening in Twilight Town. A strange bunch of people, for sure, the blond boy thought on the way home. Now he was sure that Sora was like him, but apparently Riku wasn't. And he couldn't deny to himself a certain curiosity towards that girl, Kairi, that on the way back to the city had reached him and she had whispered something that made him fully smile for the first time since he had to move from Traverse Town.

"I hope that Sora being gay isn't a problem for you, 'cause if you act bad towards him, I'll make you eat your teeth!"

* * *

**End Notes: **Alright, let's start with this brand new story. You can see when I'll upload the next chapters on my profile, I've already written the next ones, but I won't upload them immediately so to be able to upload one every two weeks. I've got nothing against previews, so if someone wants a sneak peek at the next chapters just send me a PM. And thanks to the reviewers of the first chapter ;).


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